[QuickTidal]

http://www.buzzfeed....-sh#.xq5X1PQGXX

EDIT: Surveillance video released. Looks like nothing happens much till the very very end, but the last shot before the video freezes is the suspect pointing what does appear to be a gun at the officer.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 24 December 2014 - 01:35 PM

[worry]

If he was armed, that would definitely make it newsworthy for standing out so starkly.

Meanwhile, some good faith community outreach efforts from the LAPD: http://www.salon.com..._charity_event/

[Nicodimas]

This is different response..shouldn't chaos being breaking out now??



http://nypost.com/20...on-of-two-cops/

Quote

Angry union leaders have ordered drastic measures for their members since the Dec. 20 assassination of two NYPD cops in a patrol car, including that two units respond to every call.

It has helped contribute to a nose dive in low-level policing, with overall arrests down 66 percent for the week starting Dec. 22 compared with the same period in 2013, stats show.

Citations for traffic violations fell by 94 percent, from 10,069 to 587, during that time frame.

Summonses for low-level offenses like public drinking and urination also plunged 94 percent — from 4,831 to 300. Even parking violations are way down, dropping by 92 percent, from 14,699 to 1,241.

Drug arrests by cops assigned to the NYPD’s Organized Crime Control Bureau — which are part of the overall number — dropped by 84 percent, from 382 to 63.

[worry]

Ain't this something? http://www.rawstory....arget-practice/

[Terez]

On the Cleveland police department:

http://on.msnbc.com/1AWyMMu

[Gust Hubb]

Terez, on 16 January 2015 - 11:12 PM, said:

On the Cleveland police department:

http://on.msnbc.com/1AWyMMu

HORRIBLE. Cannot believe our country, let alone the world.

[HiddenOne]

Believe it, man. Handbasket to Hell, now boarding at Gates 1,3, & 15

[Studlock]

Honest question for Americans--did you ever honestly believed you lived in the land of brave and the free (as it goes)? I'm quiet often shocked that even Americans who aren't particularly patriotic or by into american exceptionalism honestly believe that America is the 'good guy' on the global stage so to speak. This despite the noticeable mistreatment of specific groups throughout your history within your own borders right up to present day, not to say anything of your foreign policy. What makes you so ferociously committed to the idea that America is anyway the leader of the free world? I apologize if this offends, and I'm sure it will, but I want to understand what happens in the USA that makes it so that the populace is so committed to the ideals first put forth by the constitutions and yet are so willfully ignorant of the troubles faced by blacks, by women, by the poor, by latinos, by Native Americans, and so on.

[Terez]

For the most part, you are preaching to the choir. There are no Republicans here, except maybe Nico, who is more of a libertarian which means he's more inclined to see the problems in situations like these.

[Studlock]

Yes but it's not just Republicans, or libertarians , or white people. It's an American thing. This is mostly an academic question. In Canada we often ignore the problems that a rise from the past--this is getting better, more education, more open dialogue. But in American it's different, the country seems to go in phases of extreme social awareness, then a phase of self-assurance that everything is fixed, and so on, all the while maintaining with self-image of being the freest place on the planet. I assume apart of it is a lack of general education of the subject but that can't be the only part of it. I assume you could write more than a couple books on the American identity though so perhaps this isn't the place to ask this question.

[Terez]

Studlock, on 18 January 2015 - 05:17 AM, said:

Yes but it's not just Republicans, or libertarians , or white people. It's an American thing.

Um, not really. Don't get me wrong; liberal politicians (including Obama and Hillary, for example) talk the talk, because the right really goes crazy over this stuff (Google "Obama apology tour", for example), but liberals who aren't running for office are a different story. American Exceptionalism is a product of the WW era, but it started to take hard hits among liberals in the Vietnam era. Books and books have been written about American Exceptionalism.

[Studlock]

I'd disagree with the origin of American Exceptionalism, which for me has it origins in the expansion west but this thread isn't about that. I ended up just searching through some databases, interesting reading so far.

[Terez]

Okay, I'll give you Manifest Destiny, but it doesn't resonate in the modern American mind in the same way as the Greatest Generation, etc., and that kind of marks the point where the rest of the world officially took us seriously, which had a sort of rebound effect here.

I thought I had a book about American Exceptionalism, but it's actually Cold War Triumphalism.

[amphibian]

Studlock, on 18 January 2015 - 05:53 AM, said:

I'd disagree with the origin of American Exceptionalism, which for me has it origins in the expansion west but this thread isn't about that. I ended up just searching through some databases, interesting reading so far.

American Exceptionalism absolutely grew into the full-fledged monster it is today during the "Westward expansion" period - which my distant ancestor James Polk helped rev up.

However, the real beginnings of it come in the institutionalizing of slavery as a way of life/commerce/society. The after-effects of that collective decision, alongside the wiping out of the First Nations tribes by disease and war, still resonate today.

And the way that American people are educated in schools and in their own self-learning doesn't actually address those two things well. The dominant narrative is that "we the white people" took an empty land and made it yield a bounty surpassing any other in the world. That bounty allowed "us" to be free and we benevolently spread that freedom around in the guise of war vs many other countries. It's a very odd way of looking at things, although it's surpassed by the oddness that other places/people look at their own shameful pasts.

[Studlock]

"America bashing"

Oh please I mentioned in the same post that Canada, my home country, does the same thing and I was respectful throughout. Turnouts I bash every country in which operates on inherent inequalities that both emerged from it's past in is continued to be preserved into the present.

And I don't get my jollies from bashing America, I honestly believe America is one of the biggest perpetrator of injustice in a global sense but also upon it's own citizens. I know it might be hard to believe for a true patriot like yourself but I don't think America is the greatest country in the world. I'm sorry that makes you cry the red, white, and blue. Salute (the slavery, the genocide, the oppression, the segregation, the rape culture, the bombs, and all the dead brown bodies that made the glorious 50 states possible)!

[Aptorian]

amphibian, on 18 January 2015 - 06:36 PM, said:

Studlock, on 18 January 2015 - 05:53 AM, said:

I'd disagree with the origin of American Exceptionalism, which for me has it origins in the expansion west but this thread isn't about that. I ended up just searching through some databases, interesting reading so far.

American Exceptionalism absolutely grew into the full-fledged monster it is today during the "Westward expansion" period - which my distant ancestor James Polk helped rev up.

However, the real beginnings of it come in the institutionalizing of slavery as a way of life/commerce/society. The after-effects of that collective decision, alongside the wiping out of the First Nations tribes by disease and war, still resonate today.

And the way that American people are educated in schools and in their own self-learning doesn't actually address those two things well. The dominant narrative is that "we the white people" took an empty land and made it yield a bounty surpassing any other in the world. That bounty allowed "us" to be free and we benevolently spread that freedom around in the guise of war vs many other countries. It's a very odd way of looking at things, although it's surpassed by the oddness that other places/people look at their own shameful pasts.

Intesteresting concept. I've never read about American exceptionalism before.

Browsing wikipedia, I'd imagine that modern ideas of Exceptionalism might also be blamed on the Cold War. This ideological fight about what way of living is the true path. Where Russia failed, America prospered. 40-50 years of telling the American people that they were the land of the free and the home of the brave will make its mark on societies perception of itself. With the fall of the Soviet Union American society basically proved to itself and the world that they were in the right. They were the strongest, the most innovative, the richest, etc.

Studlock, on 23 January 2015 - 07:13 AM, said:

And I don't get my jollies from bashing America, I honestly believe America is one of the biggest perpetrator of injustice in a global sense but also upon it's own citizens. I know it might be hard to believe for a true patriot like yourself but I don't think America is the greatest country in the world. I'm sorry that makes you cry the red, white, and blue. Salute (the slavery, the genocide, the oppression, the segregation, the rape culture, the bombs, and all the dead brown bodies that made the glorious 50 states possible)!

I'm just going to sit down here and get my popcorn ready.

This post has been edited by Apt: 23 January 2015 - 08:30 AM

[Terez]

Apt, on 23 January 2015 - 08:21 AM, said:

Intesteresting concept. I've never read about American exceptionalism before.

Browsing wikipedia, I'd imagine that modern ideas of Exceptionalism might also be blamed on the Cold War.

That is certainly a big part of it, which is why I mistook my book on Cold War Triumphalism as a book on American Exceptionalism. The Cold War came on the heels of our perceived role as savior in the world wars.

[Studlock]

Would you say it keeps reinserting itself? I've recently read a historical article on the subject and the authors argued that American Exceptialism actually originated in the the split between England and the colonies. The underlining idea was that the Founding Fathers believed they were literally creating a better, freer society when compared to Europe (which I'd definitely agree with up to a point). So I'm wondering if this idea is a constant one that is simply restructed with ever great historical event in American history or rather a bunch or different but similar and related ideas?

[amphibian]

Studlock, on 23 January 2015 - 05:11 PM, said:

Would you say it keeps reinserting itself? I've recently read a historical article on the subject and the authors argued that American Exceptialism actually originated in the the split between England and the colonies. The underlining idea was that the Founding Fathers believed they were literally creating a better, freer society when compared to Europe (which I'd definitely agree with up to a point). So I'm wondering if this idea is a constant one that is simply restructed with ever great historical event in American history or rather a bunch or different but similar and related ideas?

I don't agree with that theory (of the colonies establishing themselves as superior to the British, Spanish or French models in their declarations of independence) as the true beginning of American Exceptionalism.

My thinking is that once the colonies began mass-importing slaves - essentially shifting into the mindset that indentured servants weren't cost-effective and we had to go full bore into the "another human and all the humans belonging to that group are inferior to us because of some combination of skin color/place of birth/difference" - that is when the elite and the government runners began believing in American exceptionalism.

Essentially, because the colonists could shift so readily to slavery, make it pay off in astounding riches and not encounter any serious repercussions, the colonies/United States got away with it and that mindset grew semi-logically into "We are the best". I'd argue that the Spanish/French Caribbean colonies would have developed the same mindset - if they weren't island nations and limited in land and resources.

Look at the Victorian empire period of the British and how they acted in India/Pakistan/Bangladesh. That's a similar type of exceptionalism and it was done by subjugating the natives and stealing from them for many, many decades. Winston Churchill was directly responsible for something like 1.5 to 2 million deaths in the 1943 Bengali famine for refusing to ship them food that was coming from Australia to go to Europe for "uncertain future consumption needs". Churchill literally made comments to the effect that the "underfed Bengalis" were worth less than the Europeans who would later eat the food.

To answer your final questions: I believe that this is a single set of ideas that keep mutating and popping up, rather than evolutions of disparate lines of thinking that continually arrive at the same point of American exceptionalism. I don't think we've gone through radical enough changes to completely level the old thinkings - despite Civil Wars, Global Wars and massive societal change - to require new ones produced out of whole cloth and then sliding into the same conclusion of exceptionalism.

This post has been edited by amphibian: 23 January 2015 - 06:35 PM

[Studlock]

I think the main thrust of the article is that the American's weren't actually superior (hence why I said upon to a point, the point being slavery) but because of the ideas that emerged from the American Revolution they viewed themselves, the newly Americans that is, as morally superior to the land of Kings in Europe. This then motivated expansion west and the creation of Manifest Destiny. That's not to say I think it's true, just thought it was a interesting take on the shaping of American identity rather than the underlining political and economic realities of the situation.